Identify hardware remotely

Question

I'm writing an application that can identify installed software on workstations in our network (in different domains too).

I would also like to be able to indentify the hardware of the workstation (brand, type, ...).
Is there any way I would be able to do this? In the system registry I can find some information about the hardware (BIOS + date), but that is not providing enough information. (.net, API, ...)
 
I've Googled a lot on the web but couldn't find any information on it (maybe because I'm using the wrong search keys :-(.

I'm sure it is possible because commercial stuff like Altiris and Discovery can do it. Problem is they work with an agent installed on every system and we have several systems that can't (or are not allowed) to run these agents. That's why I started the development of my app.

Answer 1

I think WMI would be your answer in this situation, try googling WMI.

Cheers

Col

Answer 2

BESLO said:

I would also like to be able to indentify the hardware of the workstation (brand, type, ...).
Is there any way I would be able to do this? In the system registry I can find some information about the hardware (BIOS + date), but that is not providing enough information. (.net, API, ...)

Thank you Colin for your friendly help.

Hi BESLO,

Yes, you can retrieve hardware device information on your machine via WMI.

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) contains a lot information about hardware device.

Add Reference to System.Management.dll.
Imports system.Management namesapce

Here are some code samples and related tutorials:

How to retrieve Harddisk, Motherboard and CPU information
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2245868&SiteID=1
 
How to Retrieve the REAL Hard Drive Serial Number
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/hard_disk_serialno.aspx


How to enumerate devices
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/divingsysprog2.aspx

Hardware Helper Library for C#
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/HardwareHelper.aspx
 

The WMI Code Creator tool

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2CC30A64-EA15-4661-8DA4-55BBC145C30E&displaylang=en

The WMI Code Creator tool allows you to generate VBScript, C#, and VB .NET code that uses WMI to complete a management task such as querying for management data, executing a method from a WMI class, or receiving event notifications using WMI.

Additionally, C# and VB.Net are essentially identical. Here are two helpful conversion tools:
1. Instant VB: C# to VB converter
The tool can convert entire C# project to corresponding VB.NET project, also can convert code snippet.
2. Convert C# code to VB.NET code by means of this Code Translator tool.

Best regards
Martin Xie

Answer 3

Thanks a lot Martin.

This answered my question 100%.

Took a while to understand the vbScript code and to convert it to VB2008, but I can now get the info I need!.


Thanks,


Bert